I'm thinking that, too. With Verlander on the mound in Game 3 you almost have to look at tonight's game as a must win. The Yankee offense was already stagnant even with Jeter due to the lack of production from Texeira, Cano, Rodriguez and Swisher. In truth, if it wasn't for the unanticipated heroics of Ibanez they'd have gotten knocked out by the O's.

The Yanks have come back from deficits before,but this mountain may be too high to climb.I had hoped the Yanks may give the Tigers a fight
(they still may), but the odds of that happening are pretty poor right now,IMO.

Frustrating as hell to watch this as a Sox fan. It may be presumptuous to think the Sox could have taken the A's in five (I think they had the A's number), but god do the Yankees look beatable right now. What an easy path to the World Series that was completely flushed down the toilet.

I felt that way going into the postseason, and nothing i've seen has changed my perception one bit. If the Sox got in, they could have made a deep run--which makes the collapse even tougher to swallow.

Frustrating as hell to watch this as a Sox fan. It may be presumptuous to think the Sox could have taken the A's in five (I think they had the A's number), but god do the Yankees look beatable right now. What an easy path to the World Series that was completely flushed down the toilet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by central44

I felt that way going into the postseason, and nothing i've seen has changed my perception one bit. If the Sox got in, they could have made a deep run--which makes the collapse even tougher to swallow.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree with either of you guys more.

It's been two weeks since I stood by my seat in right field after the game and cried because I'd come to the realization that the Sox weren't going to win the division. I thought that the hurt would go away by now, but it hasn't. Instead, it has gotten progressively worse with each Detroit victory. Damn it! We could've totally beaten the A's and with the Yankees not swinging the bats and having lost Jeter to injury, they're looking more beatable by the day.

But then I take a step back and remind myself that both Sale and Quintana were outta gas by mid-September, so we wouldn't have had enough starting pitching. However, had the Sox managed to pull away from the Tigers a little bit at some point during those last few weeks of the season, they could've rested Sale and Quintana 'til the postseason and looked to dudes like Axelrod and Santiago to make spot starts.

Sigh! I just can't stop thinking about what could and should have been.

Hey, I certainly can't tell you all to root for, since our boys aren't there, and I certainly get the Tiger hatred. It's just that - division rivals come and go. Over the past 12 years or so, our division rival has been either the Indians, the Twins, or the Tigers. (And the Royals have beaten our boys' brains out over a few of these regimes, but I digress...)
Does anyone give a rat's ass about the Indians or the Twins any more? Certainly not I.
Hatred of the Yankees, though - since before the debut of three divisions, since before of the debut of two divisions, since as long as I remember paying attention to baseball - the Yankees have been a thorn in my side SO MANY TIMES.

Yep, my friend, this thing looks over. The offense is absolutely putrid right now from top to bottom excepting guys no one was really relying on like Ichiro, Raul, and Martin. With Verlander on the mound Tuesday things look very bleak for the Bombers..

The sox wouldn't have done jack ****. Who do we have that pitches like Verlander? Sale is great but not even close to his quality. Peavy is worse than fister and then what? We made this on a complete stretch of that "new manager" run and collapsed because we weren't deep or good enough. The fact remains that the only consistent hitters we had were Rios and AJ, everyone else was fairly out of sync

You want to know why the Yankees are struggling? Because they have a home run or no run type of game, and just like the sox. Once the home run leaves, so does the rest of the offense. The tigers have two monsters at the 3 and 4, a decent pitching staff, and a fairly competitive 1-9.

The sox were nice, but they ended where they should have been, and the tigers were a much better team that their bull**** play showed.

I can't dream of grandeur with the sox, they were and have been mediocre for a while.

The sox wouldn't have done jack ****. Who do we have that pitches like Verlander? Sale is great but not even close to his quality. Peavy is worse than fister and then what? We made this on a complete stretch of that "new manager" run and collapsed because we weren't deep or good enough. The fact remains that the only consistent hitters we had were Rios and AJ, everyone else was fairly out of sync

You want to know why the Yankees are struggling? Because they have a home run or no run type of game, and just like the sox. Once the home run leaves, so does the rest of the offense. The tigers have two monsters at the 3 and 4, a decent pitching staff, and a fairly competitive 1-9.

The sox were nice, but they ended where they should have been, and the tigers were a much better team that their bull**** play showed.

I can't dream of grandeur with the sox, they were and have been mediocre for a while.

Well put. As we saw during out collapse, that in pressure pennant race/playoff baseball, the easy runs and many of the homers dry up, and you need to have other ways to score runs.

Plus we would have played the Yankees in the first round, facing Sabathia twice. Can you see us winning either of those two - or winning all of the other three games with our inconsistent hitting? Heck no.

Does anyone give a rat's ass about the Indians or the Twins any more? Certainly not I.
Hatred of the Yankees, though - since before the debut of three divisions, since before of the debut of two divisions, since as long as I remember paying attention to baseball - the Yankees have been a thorn in my side SO MANY TIMES.

SO that's why I plug my nose and root for the Tigers.

SMO

There's no sympathy here for the Yankees. Yes, they were the victims of a blown call last night and I'm right there with Girardi in calling it out. But I'm like so many other Sox fans -- hell, like so many other American League fans -- who have been led to believe we should step off the sidewalk when the Yankees are approaching. If they lose out this series, even to the Tigers, some measure of cosmic justice will have been done.

Our collective distaste is nothing new, of course. This YouTube clip is Jean Shepherd talking about how much he and his Old Man, both White Sox fans, hated the Yankees in the 1930s. It's long, but lays out the generations-long case for partisans like us.

I saw an Atlanta sports writer comment on this on twitter, and almost lost my stuff. The gist of it was "Oh look, the Yankees didn't sell out a playoff game. I never want to hear someone rip on Atlanta fans again."

WHAT? yea, you're right. ATL fans can't sell out ANY playoff game(not to mention being the worst sports city in america), but that's the same as the Yankees out pricing their fans this year.

I lived in Georgia briefly in the 80's and going on 10 years now in South Carolina. College sports are king in the south. Especially football, although basketball is big time in North Carolina and Kentucky. This is true even in the major metropolitan areas. It's not going to change any time soon. Us old timers who grew up in the north had our favorite pro teams to root for. Professional sports came later in the south.

I couldn't help but notice all the empty seats at Yankee Stadium for the 2nd Playoff Game against the Tigers. Were those seats sold and some people didn't come to the game? Or are Yankee fans upset over the previous games loss? Then again were the ticket prices too high and people didn't buy the tickets?